Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

[IronKen]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

How long does it take till the espresso pours? (including pre-infusion time)

Try to aim for 11 seconds.

I think your pours might be starting early hence the bitter shots caused by overextraction.

Hi Rustic!!

Thanks for the information.

My shots usually start around 11 seconds IF I get the everything right, I was playing around last night with grind and have gotten the shots betters.

FYI, I started using the VST basket and find it much easier to use then the Breville. I think it is a little easier to tamp being that it has straight walls and I believe I am getting around 20g in the basket. My shots with this basket seem much better and extraction looks good and tastes a little better then the stock basket.

I did have to adjust the grind finer to get good results.

I do agrees with everybody else that it is much harder to get your spent pucks out of the VST versus the stock, but I dont really care if they taste a little better.

Also, the VST basket is a bear to get out the portafilter and I have a newer machine with a metal portafiler spring. Wondering if replacing it with a Silvia spring would make it easier to remove??

[Metatron]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

How long does it take till the espresso pours? (including pre-infusion time)

Try to aim for 11 seconds.

I think your pours might be starting early hence the bitter shots caused by overextraction.

Hi Rustic!!

Thanks for the information.

My shots usually start around 11 seconds IF I get the everything right, I was playing around last night with grind and have gotten the shots betters.

FYI, I started using the VST basket and find it much easier to use then the Breville.  I think it is a little easier to tamp being that it has straight walls and I believe I am getting around 20g in the basket.   My shots with this basket seem much better and extraction looks good and tastes a little better then the stock basket.   

I did have to adjust the grind finer to get good results.

I do agrees with everybody else that it is much harder to get your spent pucks out of the VST versus the stock, but I dont really care if they taste a little better.

Also, the VST basket is a bear to get out the portafilter and I have a newer machine with a metal portafiler spring.  Wondering if replacing it with a Silvia spring would make it easier to remove??

I think you probably have the ridged VST basket. It has a groove around the circumference that the spring locks into. You can buy ridgeless VST baskets which are no harder to remove than the Breville ones. Most times, if you do not specify ridgeless when buying, you will get ridged baskets. I suspect this is a marketing ploy to increase basket sales as most people will realize the folly of their ways and go ahead and order a ridgeless. Easy way to double sales. 

[DavidW1960]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

I have no trouble removing my VST ridgeless from the PF. Im using a 15g VST ridgeless all the time now. I havent weighed the coffee. Id estimate 20g. No more stuck pucks.

[swamprat96]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

First time poster and long time lurker. Had my BDB and grinder for a week now. Im coming off what was a too expensive Jura that was bought 7 years ago that finally broke for the last time. Despite what you hear about Jura mine was nothing but trouble. I ended up being able to strip it and fix it in under an hour but the design was flawed and it used an amazingly large amount of coffee. Im not missing it.
So to go from fully automatic to manual has been a learning curve. Im probably a coffee bogan as Im a flat white or cappuccino guy with the occasional short black . But I am now seeming to pull consistent shots- albeit throw the odd one away. Tamping is my issue- I need to learn consistency :-X
Value for money this thing is amazing. The quality and design are really good. For me longevity and reliability is what Im looking for along with a good cup of coffee. Well done Phil and the team- it was Phils demo video that sold it to us.

[Wes_V]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Welcome to the CS forums 

Sounds like you havent got your dose quite right.
I average about 20-21 grams depending on the grind setting.

I think that we must have different baskets. I checked out the scale with a common reference and its pretty much on the button. It may be off by a gram but not 3 grams. But then again I have heard that the pull of gravity up here isnt as strong.
my baskets weight in at 23/26 grams  single/double.

[canucklehead]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Hi Phil, will the method you mentioned above cause the detergent solution flush back to the water tank because the brew boilers OPV discharges over pressurized water back to water tank? Will with this method the detergent solution contaminate the water tank as the OPV valve will open due to over-pressure?

Hi Nick

No this wont happen as the cleaner under pressure in the PF will discharge via the 3 way solenoid into the drip tray as it does when an extraction is stopped.

The section of water tubing between the outlet side of the 3 way & the dispersion block is shared by both the clean water from the boiler & the dirty water exiting to the drain after an extraction. This is why you must purge either before a shot or after a shot (or both) to push out any discharge water through the shower prior to an extraction. Cleaning in the manner I described earlier allows for this piece of tubing to be cleaned of any residual rancid coffee oils that accumulate during use.

Cheers, Phil

Hi Phil,

Are you able to elaborate on how the cleaning solution under pressure will be discharged via the 3 way rather then moving retrograde into the brew boiler?

I was reading in your cleaning steps that you will have the pump running for about 60s with the blind filter in, but I was under the impression that the cleaning solution/dirty water will only move through the 3 way once pressure/power is disengaged.

Given 60s of running the pump, wouldnt the back pressure force the cleaning solution into the brew boiler, or once the OPV opens (after 2-3s w/ blind basket in) is there no significant backflow of water occuring?

Thanks.

[briane]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Hi all, first post, just purchaed BES900 and BCG800.
I set grinder on 18 but chocked machine up, over a minute and about 10mils out. have set grinder to end of perculator/start of expresso and results only slightly better, grind feels coarser though. Also set amout -2. Beans are Merlo Kenyan 1 day old.
Pressure rises to 10bar about 7 sec infusion.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks Brian

[Wes_V]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

I found my problem with dose volume/weight. I ruined several shower screen on my silvia by over dosing. So I was just too cautious with the puck height. Plus when I bought my silvia their was no such thing as youtube. Its a great way to judge and modify. I can get up to 14g on a single. But doubles are still pushing it with 19.

[Wes_V]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Plus Your help is also appreciated.

[peter.wake]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Hi all, first post, just purchaed BES900 and BCG800.
I set grinder on 18 but chocked machine up, over a minute and about 10mils out. have set grinder to end of perculator/start of expresso and results only slightly better, grind feels coarser though. Also set amout -2. Beans are Merlo Kenyan 1 day old.
Pressure rises to 10bar about 7 sec infusion.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Wait for beans to be ready to drink?

Beans are probably too fresh if they were only roasted a day ago and are very unlikely to make nice espresso.

Grind coarser? (regardless of stupid SG scale)

The scale on the Smart Grinder is pretty meaningless: it just shows you where you have your side dial, and is not an absolute (or even accurately repeatable) measure. No two SGs are calibrated the same, and it will be different depending on whether you were tightening or loosening when you reached that point. Perhaps there are already shims in your SG and you need to remove one of the thinner ones? There have been reports of SGs shipping full of shims. If not it sounds like your SG is calibrated very badly in the factory, but that is about par for the course with that thing.

Tamp with a bit less pressure?

Really the BES doesnt reward over tamping, but I cant tell from what you say whether you are tamping hard, soft, or even trying to measure with (bathroom) scales, etc.

Put less coffee in?

This probably wont help, if the portafilter goes into position easily, you dont have too much The BES likes a little bit of overdosing.

If your tamp is right then its almost certainly down to stupid SG scale calibrated way out of wack. Just ignore it and set the dial to where the results are right. (Or see if you can remove shims).

BTW: I think the measuring tamps thing is generally BS. I do not believe you will get an accurate reading from bathroom scales, even good ones. You would need scales that can measure 20kg(?) weight/pressure properly, and scales intended to work best in the 50 - 100kg range usually do not. Scales made to read accurately in the 20kg range are not so common in a domestic setting, though Im sure some people have them.

Tamping is not that tricky, just push until most of the movement goes out of the coffee and it starts to stiffen, if you are pushing down hard and the coffee has reached the point where it is barely compressing, or not compressing at all, thats too hard. Next time press less than that! I suspect that good tamps must consider the feel of the individual grind and how you sense that compression, which is a skill, while measuring pressure will always be less successful because it takes no account of the grind and the oiliness of the coffee. That said, the BES doesnt mind a little overdosing, and it not picky about tamps if you do that.

[Thirteen13]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Hi all, first post, just purchaed BES900 and BCG800.
I set grinder on 18 but chocked machine up, over a minute and about 10mils out. have set grinder to end of perculator/start of expresso and results only slightly better, grind feels coarser though. Also set amout -2. Beans are Merlo Kenyan 1 day old.
Pressure rises to 10bar about 7 sec infusion.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks Brian

No definately over dose. You dont need to be so eratic with the grind setting.

My default setting for an unknown bean is about 5 off MAX grind and -2 amount on 1 cup. Then make fine tune from there.. That setting will get you in ball park. If it chokes completely, then -3 amount. If its too running after that finer up the grind.
For a double, i always -1 extra and 2 cups. So 1 cup is my shot i tune for then usually 8% less coffee on 2 cups dose and ill be right.

With some beans ive had to go as extra as -3 on cause course for it to shoot. Others ive had to go -1 on almost max fineness.
Ive never run a coffee on 0 amount. I always need less

[stihl88]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

No definately over dose. You dont need to be so eratic with the grind setting.My default setting for an unknown bean is about 5 off MAX grind and -2 amount on 1 cup. Then make fine tune from there.. That setting will get you in ball park. If it chokes completely, then -3 amount. If its too running after that finer up the grind. For a double, i always -1 extra and 2 cups. So 1 cup is my shot i tune for then usually 8% less coffee on 2 cups dose and ill be right.With some beans ive had to go as extra as -3 on cause course for it to shoot. Others ive had to go -1 on almost max fineness. Ive never run a coffee on 0 amount. I always need less

I agree, i choked this machine up when i first got it, and it took me about 200g of supermarket beans to get a handle on things. Generally i found that the overdosing was my common mistake.

Im on approximately 5 max and fluctuate between -2/-3 for my dose amount also. Even still i find it does tend to overdose sometimes when i grind.

[trentski]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

I agree, i choked this machine up when i first got it, and it took me about 200g of supermarket beans to get a handle on things. Generally i found that the overdosing was my common mistake.

No offence intended but the supermarket beans were your first mistake. If you kept the grind the same then you will choke it when you use fresh beans

[avsv63]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Well here are my findings so far.
I was the first one to get one of these in S.A.


1. The auto pour 1 and 2 cups feature on this machine just doesn,t work any more, it pours between 30 to 80 ml (oh and its not the grind and tamper as  one of S.A top barristers used it and got the same results, also the the bar pressure has been recalibrated to 9 bar) , tried to reprogram them under the menu but it only confused the machine , the pours varied from 10 seconds to 110 seconds (and again using the same beans,tamper , grind and only using top quality locally roasted beans)so I had to  reset the machine.
Mind you no problem as I just use the manual button only

2. My machine is still giving out uneven pours out of the porter filter, Ive changed porter handles, baskets, shower screens etc and yes I back flush and clean the machine with Cafetto as well. Also have pulled apart the entire head unit and cleaned it thoroughly as well, and yes its level.
Once again no problem as I have learned to live with it.

3. The porta filter keeps flying out of the head with every pour and yes there is no cleaning residue on the rubber holding the porta filter either. Its lost its lock in clunk it used to have.
Once again Ive just learned to hold the handle with every pour.

The machine is feeling very old very quickly !

You might be asking why dont I just take it back to a service centre and the short answer is ..Its been back 5 times and the service guy last time made me wait for over 2 weeks and did nothing.
So it is what it is.
But having said all that it makes a wild espresso, cupuccino and ristrtto .

So Ill just live with its short cummings and hope to hell that there is a Mark II ...............soon.
Cheers Angelo

[argus]

Re: Breville BES900 Dual Boiler - Owners thread

Gosh..... I should be thankful mine only has the pour volume issue which like you say can be overcome by using the manual button.
Have you tried going to Breville direct with all these issues rather than the service centre or is their response just take it to a service centre?